Varroa Strips

Great session with Bob and the bees after work. Just working away in the apiary taking down all of the hives and putting in anti varroa strips. Having taken off the last honey before the winter, last weekend, we were putting in the strips to fumigate the hives and remove any varroh mites. When you peel off the covers on the strips the fumes are enough to make you wince and the bees clearly don't like it either, as you can see, with large groups streaming out of the entrance as you work although they soon settled down once we re-assembled the hive. When we retrieved the remains of the strips a week later the fumes had evaporated through the hive and the bees had stuck everything up with propolis so it was quite difficult to retrieve the bits of paper. The hives are all different, with some rather hot and buzzy and others much more settled and compliant. After the loss of several hives last spring, two of these colonies took up home here after bait hives were set up and they chose to move in.

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